Vanished Without A Trace
Vanished Without a Trace
By Phil Winfield
Bible Text: Matthew 24
Preached on: Sunday, April 11, 2004
Grace Church of Des Moines, IA
4200 E. 25th StreetDes Moines, IA 50317
Website: http://www.gracehome.com
Online Sermons: http://gracehome.sermonaudio.com
Take your Bibles if you would, please and turn to Matthew chapter 24 and we are going t pick up right where we left off last week. We were talking about sign posts on the road to the end and we are talking about the road that leads to eternity, the road that leads to the end of all things.Some people don’t believe things are ever going to end. We preached about that in 2 Peter chapter three. There’s a group of people that believe that everything just continues as it always has. There is never going to be a change. There is never going to be anything different, man is just going to keep on and keep on until he just gets better and better and things are going to just become glorious.Well, it is not going to happen like that according to the Bible and we talked about the sign posts on the road to the end and we mentioned some of them last week. We mentioned that there were physical sign posts and we talked about famines and earthquakes and pestilences, that is, diseases. We talked about international signs. We talked about the fact that nation would rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And the Bible gives us many examples and we looked at that. And then we talked about intellectual sign posts. We ended with that one last week. We ran out of time and so we ended there saying there were intellectual sign posts pointing toward the end, that there would be an increase in knowledge and people would travel here and there all around the world trying to accumulate more and more knowledge. And I illustrated that last week.We won’t do it again, but Daniel chapter 12 and verse four—you might want to just jot these verses down in the margin of your Bible there—and Matthew 24 is a very prophetic passage and all of these verses relate so Daniel chapter 12 and verse four says, “But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.” And it says, “Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” Increased travel...has there ever been a time when travel was increased to the point that it is right now? And they will do it in order to gain knowledge and, of course, with unlimited travel we are going to the bottoms of the oceans, to the ends of the earth, we are examining everything in the jungles, in the oceans and the sky. We are examining those things too big and too far away to get up close to and we are also examining those things that are microscopic in size and they are talking about nanotechnology which is the smallest existing—at least known—existing divisions of matter. And we are talking about that.Well, those are intellectual sign posts. Knowledge shall abound. It didn’t say wisdom would increase. Make sure you make a distinction, a differentiation in your own mind between knowledge and wisdom.Knowledge has to do with the accumulation of facts, figures and data. Wisdom has to do with knowing how to use any of those things to live the life that God wants you to live and live a life that makes sense.Then there is another one. Let’s look at it, moral sign posts. Take your Bibles in Matthew chapter 24 and verse number 12 and let’s see what it says. Matthew 24:12 says, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”Now there has always been sin. It is as old as Eden itself. Sin started there. But we are living a veritable explosion of sinful activity right now. What used to be hidden in the back alleys of decadence are now paraded on afternoon television. You understand that. You understand you can watch on TV all of the decadence, all of the heathenism, paganism. And you can watch the most wickedly horrible things as it is paraded across the television. Hollywood would like you and love for you to think that transvestites and bisexuals and aberrant behavior is normal and acceptable.And do you know what the bottom rung—now just watch this, now—do you know what the bottom rung of moral decadence is and moral degeneracy? I will tell you what it is. It is when we get to where gross sinful behavior becomes an entertainment source for the masses. Stop to think about that. When gross sinful behavior becomes an entertainment source for the masses you know that you are getting to the bottom rung of moral decadence and you can’t get very much lower.You say, “Now, pastor, that’s interesting. Where did you find that in the Bible?”I’m glad you asked. Turn over to Romans chapter one and let’s look at the bottom rung of moral decadence. Romans chapter one. I won’t read it all, a very powerful passage. We will be using this passage in the month of June as we talk about some of the critical issues of the 2000s that we are living and we will look at that in the month of June, but right now let’s just read just a few verses there. Let’s begin reading at verse number 28, Romans 1:28.“Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God...” Underline that in your Bible. “They did not think it worthwhile.” Underline the phrase “...to retain the knowledge of God.”You say, “Well, what is the significance of that?”They did not want to retain in their thinking patterns, in their reservoir of knowledge they did not want to think about the fact that there was a God.Now I want to read the rest of this passage, but let me stop and direct myself to something right here. Do you know that the first thing that you have to cleanse out of someone’s conscience and psyche before you can liberate them to live any kind of life they want to and do anything they want to, is you have got to eliminate any kind of moral standard in someone’s life. You have got to shoot that thing down. Before you can liberate a person to live and do any thing they want, any time they want, any way they want, you have to eliminate the very idea of a right and wrong and that there is a moral standard.”What did Romans chapter verse 23 say this morning? We have all sinned and fallen short of the what? Of the glory of God. There is a righteousness. There is a glory. There is a right way of living that God is the example of. There is no greater example of righteousness and of doing right than Jesus Christ himself. He is the perfect example of perfect righteousness and he is the example.Somebody says, “We can never live like Jesus.”No, but we are supposed to become more and more like Jesus. That is God’s expressed purpose for our life, Romans 8:29, that we take on the image of Christ, that we become like him. That is what God is working on in your life. He is going to spend all of your life time making you more and more like Jesus. That is God’s life long purpose for you and for me, to make us like Jesus Christ.Now the first thing you have got to do if you are going to give a person moral freedom, that is, there is no morality. It is amorality. It doesn’t exit. It is immorality and it really doesn’t matter. The first thing you have to do is eliminate the knowledge of God.I want to say something to you that when your child goes to the state university or any other university for that matter that is not expressly for the purpose of Christian furtherance and the furtherance of the gospel. When they go there one of the very first things they are going to do when they get there, especially in psychology classes, world history classes, classes on civilization, one of the first things they are going to do is now the first thing we have to do, they’ll say is, “We have got to eliminate all of the baggage that you brought to this classroom and to this university. Before we can teach you anything you have got to understand that everything your momma and your daddy and your grandma and your grandpa told you is worthless, especially anything that somebody told you at some church. Throw that out and we will actually be able to teach you something.”Do you know what they are trying to do? What this verse says. They didn’t like to retain the knowledge of God in their entire being. They don’t want that. Get rid of the knowledge of God.I’m going to pull over and park. Turn over to 2 Peter chapter one, if you would, 2 Peter chapter one. I want you to make sure you understand this. 2 Peter chapter one. We studied this, just got done with 2 Peter, but I want to make the connection. Look at 2 Peter chapter one and verse two.It says, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance.” Do you want grace, God’s unmerited favor to you? Do you want peace in your life? Here is how it is going to come. It is going to come through the what? “...the knowledge of God.”Now there is two fold knowledge of God. There is what God knows that he can impart to you and then there is also what you learn and know about God. It is what you take in about him and his character from the Scriptures and also how he imparts his wisdom. James chapter one. If any man lacks wisdom, let him do what? Ask of God.God’s knowledge can give you peace. God’s knowledge can give you a life worth living.Look at verse three. “His divine power has given us everything we need.” Look at that. “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our [what?] knowledge of him.”Well, do you know what the number one enemy of satanic, satanic purpose in this world is? It is what you and I know of God, about God and from God. It completely halts Satan’s program in our life.So Romans chapter one, people who started intelligent became ignorant. They became decadent. And how did they do it? They started by saying, “We do not need an absolute standard of right and wrong.” I don’t want to ride a horse to death, but during the series on the 10 Commandments we talked about this over and over, that there are absolutes. The absolutes are not obsolete. God’s Word is true. It is true. It is true. It is true. It is true. The Word of God is your life. The Word of God gives you life. His Word is life. It gives you life. It preserves your life and it gives you life that really means something. And to ignore God’s Word is to live in death.And so this passage of Scripture right here where we are reading here in Romans chapter one is so very powerful because when a person says, “All right. I don’t want to think about God anymore, as long as I am thinking about a righteous God who judge, then I can’t go out and do anything that I want to.” And that is where they started. They said, “All right. That’s it. No more thinking. No more retention of God in our knowledge.”And so, furthermore, since they did not think worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind. What kind of mind do you get when you eject God? When you eject God what do you get? You get what kind of a mind? A depraved mind, a decadent mind, an indecent mind.So where is all the indecency and the immorality, the amorality, where does all that come from today? It comes from ejecting God from your though patterns. You eject him, you eject his Word and so that is where...that is the society that we live in. And so he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done.Notice, please read your Bible with care. Read your Bible carefully and meditate on it.Do you know why people do the wrong things? It is because they first start off thinking the wrong things. Notice what happened. First of all they had to eject God out of their thinking processes and their knowledge. And once they got him out of their head then they didn’t have any problems getting him out of their habit. Get him out of your head, then you can get him out of your habits. And that is exactly what we see.So how far did it go? Well, they do the things that ought not to be done. “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.” Sound like the newspaper to you? “They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful.”Look at the next phrase.And they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only...Now watch.Now you say, “Pastor, you started going to tell us what the bottom rung of the ladder of moral decadence is.”Well, here is what it is. Right here is the bottom rung. The not only continue to do these very things, but the “also approve of those who practice them.”What is it that the world, the news media is trying to get us to do right now? They are trying to get us to approve of what? Same sex marriage. They are trying...they want approval. It is not...they don’t want permission. They are going to do it whether we give them permission or not as a nation. They are going to do it. It is not a matter. But what they want is they want equal standing. They want approval. They want us to stand up and say, “Ok, we know that this is...that you can’t help it and you were just born this way and we might as well just recognize it.”We might as well just recognize rapists. We might as well just recognize murder because people are doing it. People are doing all kinds of things, but that doesn’t make it right before God almighty in heaven.Now watch this passage. What is the bottom rung of moral decadence? When society, when we even as Christians begin to get used to the idea and we begin approving, tolerating—oh, there is your word—tolerating. But when they say tolerate they do not mean put up with. They mean give it equal standing. They mean declare that what you believe is ok, but what they believe is very much as ok as what you believe. In other words, let’s just get rid of the retention of God in our mind and then there is no moral standard.Now, folks, think about what you are reading in this passage of Scripture. Meditate on what God says. The bottom rung of moral decadence is when we approve of, give assent to, when we allow these kinds of things and we say, “Well, it is just a different alternative to living.”Wow.Well, I’ll just carry it a little bit further. Let me read in the New American Standard Version. It says, “And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”Other versions say they applaud those who practice them. One version says they entertain themselves watching those who practice them.When our entertainment—now you be careful. When our entertainment is to watch—though we don’t participate—what others do of moral decadence, we are giving approval to what they are doing. Ooh. Moral decadence.Last week I went to the debate in Ames up there with Mike Hartwig. What a deal. W e were actually sitting in a room with people who could read an write, worked jobs, drove themselves to the meeting, drank punch and ate cookies without spilling it all over themselves and yet they did not have a clue to the difference between normal sexual relations and same sex relations. I was amazed.There were young people in that journalism school that think and act with a pack mentality. Like wolves in a pack what one decides they all go along with. What one voices they all applaud. No thought process, thinking is worthless. Just forget thinking. Put that aside. Just do just whatever the pack decides, then let’s just go with it. They think in pack mentality.By the way, coming up here in just a couple of weeks, I don’t have the date and time in front of me, but Mike is going to go to debate, once again, at Grinnell College right out here. Do you have it Mark? What is it? Tuesday, this coming Tuesday, Grinnell College, 6:30, right? 6:30. I don’t know whether you can find out from Mark. There is going to be another debate there. It has to do with same sex marriage and all those things again. But, boy, it was wonderful to see over 100 grace people at the last one. It would be great to see that again to support Mike in this.And you say, “Well, what in the world is he doing debating?”Well, Mike is not going over there thinking he is going to change anybody’s mind. He is going over there like Jeremiah did with his face set before them and God is going to make him a brass and an iron wall to give the truth as a witness against them so that God, one day, will be able to say, “You heard the truth from that person right here.” They might not a one of them believe what he said. They may reject every word. But that doesn’t have anything to do with it because nobody believed Jeremiah either, but he was a witness against them. And that is exactly what is going on.But I went up there and these pack mentality people in that journalism school, they want us to believe and they want us to accept that any thing, any one wants to do, think or live out in their life should not only be permissible, it should be promoted by everyone else. That is what they want you to believe. They want you to receive, applaud, encourage and promote all styles of life.Someone rightly pointed out that if gay and lesbian same sex marriages sanctioned by society it will only be a matter of time until polygamy will be readdressed. Why not? Somebody else said that communal partnering. Why that’s just their expression. It is just the way. They don’t believe in just having one partner. Why that’s the way the expressed it. Who are we to tell a man that he can’t have two wives? Who are we to tell two men that they can’t have wives and share them? Who are we to tell men they can’t have three wives and three men and share them? Who are we to...? We can’t decide that as a society? That’s up to... Who are we to tell people what to do behind bedroom doors?Do you know what? We are talking about it. You listen to me. We are talking about civilization itself when we start talking about these kinds of subjects. The bottom rung of moral decadence is when you approve of, applaud and tolerate any and every kind of aberrant behavior. And there is a right and a wrong in God’s Word. It is so very, very clear.I would like to ask them sometimes. I heard them keep talking. I have a simple question for anyone that thinks a same sex couple can be monogamous and raise children. What a joke.They say, “Well, just want to have a monogamous relationship just like heterosexuals do.”Well, how are you going to have a monogamous relationship and rear children because with a monogamous relationship between two people of the same sex there is no such thing as rearing children unless there is a third partner in that monogamous relationship because there is no children possible without it. It is insane. There has to be that third person.We, in order to believe all of those things we have to simply bid good riddance to common sense, not even to mention the righteous plan of God in his Word. There are moral sign posts.You see, all of the things going on around us are indicators. They are signs of the times. They are telling us that we are on the road. We are headed toward the end and the end is getting closerThen there is the spiritual sign post, the spiritual sign post, last one. Evil men will get worse and worse. Daniel 12:10, wicked men. “Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked.” And they will get worse and worse.There are wicked men. There are wicked leaders. Jeremiah 5:1-2 through chapter five verse three to five talks about the leaders that were wicked and they were setting the pace for wickedness.There used to be a day that we could point to public servants and say, “Wow, these people, at least, you know, they are not perfect but they are giving a good example. We can point to them and say, ‘Let’s follow these kinds of leaders.’”Boy, it’s getting hard, isn’t it? Leaders, religious leaders, pastors, preachers, priests, what have you. Listen to God’s Word, Jeremiah 5:30.A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way.How sad. Wicked preachers.Micah chapter two it says we have preachers telling people what they want to hear.Verse 11. “If a liar...” Get this. This is amazing. This is Micah. This is Micah chapter two. Write this down in your Bible. This is amazing, verse 11. “If a liar and deceiver come...” Now, who is this? “If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ‘I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people!”You know the Bible says that in the last days that people are going to heap to themselves teachers to tell them just what they want to hear. Forgive us, please, at Grace Church for not being only self help organization. This is not about how to come over and get everything fixed to organize this and organize that and fix this and get along with this person better. It is about coming in and taking a look at God almighty and his Word and humbling ourselves before him and living the life that God has planned for us to live and guess what? All those other issues fall in line when you put God in his proper place. It is so interesting.2 Timothy or Micah chapter three verse 11. “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD and say, ‘Is not the LORD among us? No disaster will come upon us.’” Well, that is exactly what they are saying today. Oh, no. Land of the free, home of the brave. Why we are a Christian nation. God is not going to do anything to us. We are not exempt from God’s righteous judgment as a nation.2 Timothy chapter four verse three. “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.” We are getting there. They will not put up with sound doctrine.Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.It is a sad day when you cannot look to the pulpit and hear the truth and only the truth from God’s Word. It is a sad day, it is a sad day when from our pulpits by means of interpolation and by means of transliteration and by means of twisting the Scriptures pastors and preachers all across our land stand up and give basically blanket, carte blanche permission to live any way you want to, do anything you want. After all, you are just clay and God doesn’t hold you responsible for anything you do. There is enough of God’s grace to cover.Well, there is. But I am going to show you a verse in a little while that says what God’s grace should teach us, something very powerful. And so wicked teachers and wicked prophets and wicked leaders and wicked people. These are the sign posts on the road to the end. They don’t necessarily mean we are there yet, but it sure means that we are getting very, very close.I don’t know about how many of you take road trips. I love to take a road trip. My family, I think, Bonnie and I and our kids just, you know, just tell us we are just going to take a road trip. We are going to because, I don’t know, we did it so much when we were on deputation and on pre field ministry and on furlough, I mean it got to be an art form with us. We just love to take road trips. But when we are getting close to where we are getting we enjoyed seeing the signs along the side of the road counting down the miles, getting closer and closer and knowing that you are getting there and so those sign posts were welcome sights.Now that doesn’t always work because Wall Drug Store is also advertised Moscow. I don’t know if you knew that or not, but it is. And you start seeing those signs way ahead of time.Well, I want you to know that the sign posts on the road to the end, there are not only many of them, but they are increasing in number and I believe that we are getting close to the end. So there are physical signs, international signs, intellectual signs, moral signs, spiritual signs. But on the road ahead there is something else that I want to talk to you about and just basically introduce tonight. There is not going to be enough time to completely finish it, but I want to talk to you that on the road ahead that there are going to be millions missing one day, millions missing, vanished without a trace.Just last week we got started on the series and I borrowed this title from Bill Gates, “The Road Ahead.” Lots of people are borrowing things from Bill today and I don’t mean what he means. When he talks about the road ahead he means things that he is planning right now to introduce in the technological and the computer fields, but I am talking about some pretty amazing things that God has said hundreds and even thousands of years in advance. And last week when I showed that computer chip in the hand deal, boy, did I get a lot of reaction to that one right there. I don’t think have ever gotten so many emails in my life over something as I did over that right there and I have gotten questions everything from, “Pastor Phil, is that the mark of the beast?” to, “You are scaring us and our children to death. Please be careful in what you are saying.”Well, just this week brother Larry [?] I don’t know if he is in here. Are you in here tonight, Larry [?]? He is probably teaching a class somewhere, but Larry [?] bought a dog and when he bought that dog do you know what they did? They said, “Larry, we would like to sell you a little computer chip and we would like to put this computer chip in that dog and we want you to know that every day, 365 days a year there are literally dozens of dogs that are lost and found because of this computer chip. This year we will find 1000 lost dogs for people just like you through the on star system with this little computer chip and we will be able to find that dog for you. And by the way, Larry, one day that computer chip is going to be used on humans.”I had a bunch of people get really upset with me. That’s not happening. All you got to do, if you just keep looking you are going to find it all over the internet. One day it will be.Now I want you to listen. So let me talk to you for a minute about the fact that as we move on to this thought we need to be aware that one day on the road ahead there will be millions missing, vanished without a trace.Now I am not a TV junkie, but that is one television show I kind of like. Have you ever seen the With a Trace Channel Eight? Man, I love that show. That is one of my favorites. They... I always love trying to figure out how things happened, where people went. I am an Agathie Christie mystery buff. I love to read those mysteries and try to figure it out before the end.Well, there are going to be millions missing without a trace. The Bible says that they will be caught up, caught away. The Latin Vulgate actually uses a word from where we get the word “rapture.” It is the word rapio, if you want to write that down, the Latin word—R-A-P-I-O. It literally means to snatch away.Now, turn this off. Is this off? Make sure that is off. What is rapture? That’s rapture.You say, “Pastor, say that again.”What is rapture? That’s rapture. Snatch away. Catch away. It has nothing to do with thing. It had to do with who grabbed it and jerked it out and the rapture has to do with that moment in time when God literally catches away, snatches away, jerks away in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, takes away those that are his.1 Thessalonians chapter four verse 17. “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds.” There is the word. “caught up.” “And so we will be with the Lord for ever.”Now that teaching about the Lord’s coming is not an isolated thought in the Scripture. Now listen to me. It is not an isolated, one time only mentioned thing in God’s Word. There are approximately 224 prophecies concerning Christ left to be fulfilled and God will do as good with the second coming as he did with the first coming. That is he will have 100% accuracy in his predictions. And the rapture of the Church is not a welcome doctrine in this world even among some Christians. It is not welcome.The whole idea of the Lord coming back and just taking us out in a moment, just taking us out without warning and taking us into God’s presence, a lot of people just don’t...they get real nervous about that very teaching. They don’t like that.Well, here is a guy here that really hated it. In 1996 on NPR radio Andrew Codrescu said, “The evaporation,” get this, “the evaporation of four million people that believe in this blankety blank, blank, blank, blank,” National Public Radio, “would leave the world a better place.” He was talking about the teaching of God’s Word concerning the rapture. “All of the people that believe this blankety blank would leave the world a better place.”National Public Radio had to apologize. I doubt that Mr. Codrescu ever apologized, but that will be reserved for the day he does so on his knees confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.Let me start with a verse that doesn’t really teach the rapture, but does teach us about the idea of the suddenness of the event. Now mind you when we talk about the rapture...You say, “What are we talking about?”We are talking about a yet future event involving the literal bodily movement of believers from this world to the Lord’s presence. Now what is the rapture? We are talking about a yet future even that involves the literal bodily movement of believers from this world to the next world or to the Lord’s presence.Now, you are in Matthew chapter 24. You need to stay there. That’s where all of our study is based as we talk about the road ahead. Matthew chapter 24 and verse number 36. “No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And so it says there in verse 36 that only the Father knows—at least at the time that this was written—was the only one knew. He says, “No one knows about the day or hour. We don’t know when it is coming.”And then drop down to verse 42. Its says, “Therefore keep watch.” Underline that. “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”When is the Lord coming? Keep watch.When is the Lord going to be here? Just be watching.When is the Lord going to be here? Keep living right because the Lord may come at any time.So when is he coming? Well, you must be ready in verse 44, “because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”He is going to come and he is going to come suddenly. He is going to come when we are not thinking about him. He is going to come, if we are not careful, when we are not aware.Now I can’t go into detail here, but technically this passage is talking about rapture in reverse. It is not talking about the rapture. When it says, “two left in the field, one taken and one left, two will be grinding, one taken and one left.” It is not talking about the rapture. It is talking about what happens at the end of the tribulation period, but I will talk to you about that in the future. I promise I will clear that up for you in the next two or three lessons. But it does make an application to the people who were standing right there in front of Jesus. And the application was: Therefore you need to be ready. You yourself need to be ready because your Lord is going to come at an hour that you are not thinking about it.And so he says, “Be ready.”Well, somebody might ask, “Well, what does the rapture have to do with me? I can’t do anything about it. I am living here doing my duty. I can’t stop the rapture so I will just wait.”Well, that’s true. Somebody might say, “Well, you know, big deal. The rapture is coming. What can I do about it?”Well, if the Lord is coming and he is going to judge every one of us we had better be ready for when he gets here. You know, he wants to...we need to be found doing what the Lord wants us to be doing. I remember when my dad would come home, especially if my mother was absent and she had given us instructions. And when my dad would come home if he did not find us doing as we were told to do, it was Katie, bar the door. I am going to tell you when he came home and we were doing the wrong thing we paid dearly for not having done what he told us to do.Well, just imagine if he who knows everything, if he who sees the thoughts in our head and the intents of our heart, if he catches us in a situation of unrepentance, then what is it going to be like for us?But I want you to know this statement, “What does that have to do with me? I am living here and doing my duty, I can’t stop the rapture so I will just wait.”Well, that is a pretty good statement. I will just wait.Flip over in your Bible to 1 Thessalonians chapter one. Flip over there right quick, 1 Thessalonians chapter one. We will read just a little short passage there, very, very important on this subject. That little thought of I will just wait is exactly what we are supposed to be doing.1 Thessalonians chapter one verse eight says, “The Lord’s message rang out from you.” This is a church, the church at Thessalonica. They were a good church, very...a church of much commendation. Paul bragged on this church like he did very few churches in the New Testament. He said, “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.”Isn’t that a great statement? Wouldn’t you like it to be said about Grace Church, “Man, you guys don’t just have it going on over there on Sunday at church, but your faith is ringing out. People are hearing about what is going on at Grace Church here there and everywhere”?I had a lady come up to me this morning. She said, “Pastor Phil, you don’t know me, but I know you pretty well.”I said, “Is that so?”“Yes, I live in the northwest corner of the state. I have a sister who goes to church here and I have listened to every sermon that you have preached for the last seven months on CD and thank you very much for preaching God’s Word.”Well, I was excited to hear that. That’s pretty exciting. This week I got an email, get this, from Sydney, Australia. And it said, “Hey, just went back and listened to your sermon, downloaded it on the internet and got the...I go the sermon notes and if it is ok, I’m going to preach that sermon next week over here in Sydney. Would that be all right?”I said, “Man, just like I have been told so many times before, if my bullets fit your gun then shoot them. You know, that’s it. Just take them and shoot them.”Jerry Vine said that first. Rick Warren said it second. Now you heard me say it. So that’s just the way it is. And so the Lord’s...The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell...Now watch. Look at this conversion in the lives of these people.They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.There is a rescue coming. What do you call that rescue boat? The rapture. There is a rescue from the coming wrath. It is the rapture.Now watch. Back up a little bit. It says here they did three things. I want you to see the teaching about the conversion of a soul in these verses. It says, first of all, that they turned to God from idols. Salvation always involves that kind of repentance. It means turning from something and turning to something.I was just a little boy. I had not spent all of my time. I had not been involved in the horrible things and this sin and that sin and all of the gross things you might mention, however I had to turn from confidence in my own good behavior in memorizing so many Bible verses and [?]. I had to turn from my confidence in self and I had to turn to my confidence and trust in God in order to turn to God from what I was trusting in.Do you see that? That is the first step of salvation, turn to God from something. Second. And then what did they do? After they turned to God, then they turned to him to serve the living God. And one of the most sure ways of telling that a person is genuinely converted is to see if they stop primarily serving self and they started primarily serving the Savior.You say, “What?”Let me say that to you again. One of the most sure fire ways to find out if a person knows the Lord—I am not saying it is the only way—but an absolute sure fire way is if a person who has been self serving their whole life all of the sudden wakes up to the fact that they can serve an almighty God and that God through them can serve other people.Do you see that? First of all you turn to God from something and second of all while you are waiting you are serving. You are doing somebody and you are letting God use you and you are serving God.Then the third thing: And to wait for his Son from heaven. You know what? The waiting is the third thing mentioned. The first thing we do is repent. We come to him, turn to him. The second thing we do is get busy doing something, serving him. Just I mean you serve him in your prayers. You serve him as you learn about him. You serve him as you love him. You serve him as you praise him. You serve him as witness to others. You serve him as you give. You serve him as you talk to others. You serve him as you served your family. You serve him as you love your wife. All of these things are serving God. You are serving his will. You are doing what he wants.But here is what we are supposed to do. Come to God, serve God and then what? Wait. Don’t get impatient. Don’t worry about the... You know what? Christians should be the one group in the world that are not sitting at the kitchen table tapping their fingers and going... We shouldn’t be doing that.“The world is getting so bad. You just talked about it. It’s horrible. The sky is falling.”That should not be us. We should not be that group because what are we waiting on? One of two things: resurrection or rapture, one of those two things. That is what we are waiting on. Now I kind of go... I would kind of like to go the rapture route rather than the resurrection? How many of you would like to go the rapture route instead of the resurrection? You know, to do the resurrection thing you have got to die first. I would rather do the rapture thing.Maybe that is why at the end of the book of Revelation it says, “Even so, come.” That’s a great prayer, isn’t it? John is writing it. He has written all these things down and I have got to stop. Time is up. But he writes at the end of the book of Revelation and he says, he says after he has written all of these things, he... Man, he has fell on his face before God in chapters one, two, three and four. He was lifted up in the Spirit and saw things that he could not understand. He wrote about things that made no sense to him. He saw the glory of heaven. He saw the goriness of hell. He saw all of these things. But what he is fixated on was that chapter 19 about when Jesus comes and he takes him to himself all the glory and all the honor and all the kingdoms and all the praise. He takes it all to himself and everything lines up under him and, once and for all, the subjugation of all things is put under his feet and he finally puts to death death. He puts death to death. That is the last enemy. Puts it to death.And then as John is reading all of that. I am sure it is all inspired, but I really like that part where John says... Lord, this is so good. This is unbelievable. “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”You want to pray a prayer that a Bible person prayed? Pray for the Lord to come back. You say, “Lord, why don’t you just come on back?”Now don’t pray so that you can escape your problems. Pray so that you can go into his presence. Let your motive be right.I remember in college one time I had a final exam coming up. I started praying for the rapture because I was not ready.Do you know what? We of all people in the world have reason to rejoice. We have been forgiven for our sins. We have been given eternal life. And do you know what else we have been given? We have been given rescue before the wrath and the wrath is coming.Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?Maybe you are here tonight and you say, “I don’t... I really don’t know all of what you are talking about, but that whole thing scares me and if Jesus were to come back tonight I do not know that I would go with him because I am not his child.”You see, if you are God’s child, you have a seal put on you. You have been marked.You say, “I don’t see any mark. I bathe every day. I don’t see any marks.”Oh, no. It is not a mark that you are going to see. It is a mark that only God almighty and the angel reapers are going to be able to see. And do you know what that mark is? Ephesians chapter one says it is the seal of the Holy Spirit of God.What does that mean? That means that the very presence of God in you, God can certainly recognize himself. And, you know, it is God in you that is the hope of eternal glory.And so I want to say to you tonight if you are here and you say, “Well, I don’t think God lives in me.”Well, if Jesus were to come back tonight, shout and blow the trumpet and take his away from this world, if God is not in you, you are not going and to be left in this world to endure what is coming is horrible.If you are here tonight and you have never called on Jesus to be your Lord and Savior I invite you to do so. I invite you to pray a prayer so simple, “Dear Jesus, I am a sinner. If I were to die I don’t believe I would go into your presence. If you were to come I know you wouldn’t take me because I am a sinner. I have never believed on you. But I believe you tonight. I believe you died, that you were buried and that you rose again. I invite you to come into my heart and be my Savior. I want that seal of the Holy Spirit in my life. I want you to live in me. The best way I know how I receive you, Jesus. Please receive me. I give you total care and control of my life.”If you are here tonight and you have prayed that prayer, you said, “Dear Jesus, come into my heart,” if you did that then I want to say to you, you were just born into God’s family and the Holy Spirit of God took up residence. He moved in. He is going to live in you. And then the third thing is that if the trumpet were to blow, the rapture, the catching away was to happen, you would go with him and not be left to suffer the wrath that is to come.If you are here and you prayed that prayer with heads bowed, please don’t look around. Heads bowed, eyes closed. Say, “Pastor, I prayed that prayer tonight. I asked Jesus to come into my heart.” Would you just raise your hand up? Anyone? Just raise it up.Well, my dear family of friends, Christian brothers, we have so many messages to share, but the basic and truthful message that we all can share is that Jesus saved us and he can save them. Share it with your friends. Share it with your neighbors. Share it with your loved ones. Tell them. Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. Jesus is coming back and he will take you with him.Father, bless us tonight and help us to take this message. Help us to understand that you are coming and to believe it with all of our hearts. We love you, Lord. We thank you for dying on the cross. We thank you for saving us from our sins, paying the ultimate price by sacrificing yourself. But, Lord, this is Easter. We thank you that you conquered death and hell and the grave and that you rose again promising us a resurrection and eternal life in Jesus’ name we ask all these things. Amen.Daniel 12:4Ibid.Matthew 24:12Romans 1:28Ibid.Ibid.1 Peter 1:2Ibid.2 Peter 1:3Ibid.Romans 1:29Romans 1:29-30Romans 1:29-30-32Romans 1:30Romans 1:32 (NAS)Daniel 12:10Jeremiah 5:30-31Micah 2:11Ibid.Ibid.Micah 3:112 Timothy 4:32 Timothy 4:3-41 Thessalonians 4:17Ibid.Matthew 24:36Matthew 24:42Ibid.Matthew 24:441 Thessalonians 1:8Ibid.1 Thessalonians 1:8-91 Thessalonians 1:9-10Revelation 22:20Ibid.Page PAGE 17 of NUMPAGES 17
Sign Posts on the Road
Sign Posts on the Road
By Phil Winfield
Bible Text: Phil Winfield
Preached on: Sunday, April 4, 2004
Grace Church of Des Moines, IA
4200 E. 25th StreetDes Moines, IA 50317
Website: http://www.gracehome.com
Online Sermons: http://gracehome.sermonaudio.com
Take your Bibles if you would, please, and turn to Revelation chapter 13, the book of Revelation chapter 13. “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.” And we will talk about this in the future of who these people are.He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth.You might write the words “false prophet” across the top of your page there.He ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.And then verse 16, underline it.He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no-one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.In 1996 Bill Gates wrote a book. Now do any know who Bill Gates is? Sadly, that is a name that is approaching one of the most famous people in all the world. He wrote a book called The Road Ahead. In it he outlined some pretty amazing forecasts concerning technology. And he added to his billions in the process and lots of what he predicted came to pass. It was in that book that he talked about being able to hold in your hand a mini computer with, Rich, you could keep your schedule, have pictures of your children, use as a telephone. You got one right over there, don’t you? He’s got one right there. But at 1996 you didn’t have one.And he was talking about the technology of the future and all of the things that were going to happen.Are you ready? Ok. Let me finish my statement now. You got me going. He is waving at me up there. Ok. And he made some statements about coming things, things on the road ahead. And it was a fascinating book and I haven’t read all of it, but I am going to as I get into this study talking with you and about these things. And in that book he described what would happen on these little mini computers.Many other things. He said the internet was only the opening door, just opening the door to the technology of the future of what is going to be able to be done with microchips and with all kinds of small, mini computers of what we will be able to do. You even see it now with your cell phones as, you know, people are stealing each other’s secret passwords at ATM machines now with these cell phones as they stand behind and take pictures. Another person is looking as they are talking on their phone and it is amazing what is going on. And he predicted a technology explosion.You say, “Pastor, what does that mean?”That means that the technology exists right this minute to mark every man, woman, boy and girl on the whole world.He said, “Well, there might be...there might be...we might have to take a vow of commitment to the beast.”And that is what this is all about.You say, “When is this going to happen?”I don’t know.“When...? Is it right around the corner?”I don’t know.“Is it going to happen the next year, five years...?”You know, what bothers me about that question is a lot of it if we really knew when all these things were going to happen, if we knew when Jesus was coming back then we would live right up to the last minute the way that we want to and we just wouldn’t get serious until we knew he was coming tomorrow. That’s why you don’t know the hour of your death. That’s why the Lord doesn’t tell you you are going to live today, tomorrow and the next day you die. He wants us to be expectant of either death, expectant of his return and expectant that it could happen at any moment.Why? Because we are supposed to be busy today. We are supposed to be aware today.Now this is not fictitious. This is in existence. All you have to do is go online, Google.com. I use it all the time and just type in “mondex.” Type in the word “verichip” and you can read hundreds of links about this very technology and this year, 2004, they will produce one billion of those little right sized chips.What could happen? Well, I don’t know what could happen exactly, but I know that the technology exists right now for the beast to be able to know exactly where we are and what we are doing. And if they force everyone to take that mark, I believe there will be a vow of commitment that will also go along with the mark. I don’t believe it will just be as simple as punching people with a needle.But I do say this. All of this information, all of this technology should make us aware that Jesus is even at the door. He is coming and he is coming very soon.Take your Bibles, if you would, and look to Matthew chapter 16. Let’s see if I can move through some information quickly with you tonight that will help you as we think about the fact that we are on the road toward eternity, that we are on the road toward the end of all things and mankind has been on this road for all of history and that heading toward the end, but wow, those living thousands of years ago they just didn’t see it, didn’t understand it, they didn’t even understand the cross, the crucifixion when they were talking about it in the Old Testament. And certainly those New Testament writers writing about these things may have surmised, they may have calculated, they may have guessed and they may have come up with their ideas, but as we get closer to the time, all of these things become more and more of a reality for you and for me.Matthew chapter 16 verse one says:The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. He replied, "When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Jesus then left them and went away.Do you notice that part it says there? “But you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”Jesus embarrassed the Pharisees a little here and he pointed out that he had enough knowledge to tell the weather, but they could not tell the seasons. They had enough knowledge to know whether it was going to rain in the morning or not, but they did not have enough knowledge to know that the seasons were changing and that the times were changing and that they needed to look ahead to what was going on.We are going to use our Bibles tonight. Take your Bible now and turn to Daniel chapter 12 and we will move rapidly and try to cover a lot of ground as I want to lay a groundwork for what we are going to be looking at the next weeks here on Sunday evenings.Daniel chapter 12 and verse number one. I can’t teach all of the context about Daniel here. I just want to read these verses and draw your attention to something, chapter 12 verse one. “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.” Notice that, a time of distress, Jacob’s troubles.You might write the word there in the margin of your Bible, write the word “tribulation.”“But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.” Look at that phrase. Everyone whose name is written in the book, they will be delivered. I am not looking for the antichrist. I am looking for the very Christ. I am not looking for the antichrist or the beast or the false prophet or the unholy trinity. I am not looking for an undertaker. I am looking for an uppertaker. I am looking for Jesus Christ to come and to take us back to heaven.Now that is what our hope is. What is the blessed hope? It is the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.Verse two. “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” You see, we are all on the road. And I want to talk to you now, over the next few weeks, about the road ahead. I want to talk to you about what is ahead of us concerning the final events in history and what is it that we can look forward to. What is in the road ahead?Tonight I just want to talk about the sign posts. I want you to look at some signposts that let us know that we are nearing the end of the road.Now, don’t let it be said that pastor Phil is setting dates. I am not setting dates, not setting seasons. I am not going to tell you this year, next year, 10 years from now. I have no clue. It is not up to me. Acts chapter one verse six to eight says I am not even supposed to think about it. I am just supposed to be busy being a witness for him.However, it does say that we are not supposed to be good at looking at the weather and being able to predict that yet be unaware of the signs of the end. And so in this passage of Scripture, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and [what kind of] contempt.?” Everlasting contempt, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction.I have on many occasions debated different ones about whether hell was for a moment or whether it was for eternity. Does a person just disintegrate at the very moment they are dropped off into hell and do they go out of existence? Or is it true that that rich man in the story of the rich man and Lazarus is still looking for a drop of water. He is still screaming for someone to go tell his brothers not to come to that place.Well, I want you to know that this passage of Scripture says some are raised everlasting life and others are raised to everlasting judgment. Every man, woman, boy and girl that is born on this planet is headed on the road toward the end. They are headed on the road toward eternity. They are headed on the road toward everlasting life or they are headed on the road to eternal and everlasting destruction.From time to time people will ask as they visit this church, and they will come up to me and they will say, “Pastor, now is this a church where you still preach about hell? Do you actually believe that there is a hell, a heaven to gain and a hell to shun? Do you really believe that there is a place like that or has it gone the way of the monster computers, the unicard computer, the Univac computer that took 30 rooms to occupy? Has it gone that way?”No. I want you to know that the Word of God does not change. And I want you to know that the Bible teaches that there is a literal burning hell where people will suffer throughout all of eternity and the eternity of heaven would not make any sense if it were not for also the eternity in the continuum of hell.Notice this verse, “Those who are wise...” Circle that word. “Those who are wise...” Those who are instructing others, “...will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”It is a wise thing to be getting out the good news. I said it this morning. This is a love worth finding, it is a love worth living and it is a love worth sharing. And I want you to know that you, as a born again child of God, engage yourself in a very wise activity when you stand up for righteousness in this world. And then, also, when you share the good news of the gospel with someone else because there is an eternal hell and there is an eternal heaven.The road ahead for everyone is not the same; some to everlasting judgment, some to everlasting life.Now, the first thing I want to say tonight in regards to this subject is only God knows the exact details and the timing of what lies ahead. We would like to think that we have it all figured out. In fact, during the days of the Cold War there were numerous people—and I remember talking to several of them—that were just convinced that the Russians were the one that were going to invade form the north in the Middle East. It seemed logical because Daniel talked about the northern kingdom. Zechariah talked about the northern kingdom. Jeremiah and Isaiah talked about the northern kingdom and that they were going to invade in the end days.Well, that still may be true. Russia may be involved. They may invade, but the proximity of that does not seem to be so overbearing because of the fall of one little organization called the Soviet Union.Jeremiah, as well—it is an interesting illustration of that whole point—Jeremiah in the first eight chapters talks about an invasion coming into Judah from the north. If you have read Jeremiah any time recently you will remember that Jeremiah kept saying that marauding armies, overpowering armies, armies that will sweep you away are going to come and eliminate Judah. And he was talking about that elimination of Judah and Jerusalem that was going to take place and did finally for the last time take place in 586 BC. That is what he was talking about. It is going to come from the north.And who was it that came? It was Babylon.Now, if you have ever had a Bible map out you can even look at your Bibles now if you wish to the very back of it. Find that one that talks about the Assyrian and Babylonian Empire and you are going to find out that Susa and Babylon and all of those areas were directly east of the city of Jerusalem.And somebody would say, “Well, now there you have a discrepancy in the Bible. The Babylonians were supposed to come from the north...or the invading armies were supposed to come from the north, but the invading armies came from the east.”Well, if you study this a little bit closer you will find out that the first thing they was go up and finish off Assyria. They went up the fertile crescent, up the Euphrates River, directly north of Jerusalem, finished off the Assyrians and came straight south into the city of Jerusalem and in three separate occasions all three times from the north they took away, first Daniel and his friends, then all of those that had any craft, then finally the rest of the people, leaving only the poorest in the land, final time, 586 BC and Jerusalem was sacked. That was the end of it.And they came from the north. And so we know that God can be saying many things.Listen to Isaiah chapter 46 and verse nine. Only God knows what is going on.You say, “Pastor, do you know when the Lord is coming?”No, I do not.“Do you know what day he is going to come?”I have no clue.“Do you know whether the Lord is going to come within the next year or 10 years?”I have not an idea. But I do know that the Lord is coming and it is much closer to us now than it has ever been. He is coming and he is coming soon.Look in Isaiah 46. You may have to just jot down some references. Verse nine.Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.Notice these are those chapters where God declares his sovereignty greater than any other place in the Scripture. Isaiah 43 to 46. “I am God. There is none other. I will not give my glory to another.” He says it over and over and over.And right in the middle of it he says, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.”And you know, Bill Gates made some pretty accurate predictions knowing that in his factories and in his rooms and in his laboratories he was studying this kind of technology. He made some predictions about what he knew was going to come to pass. But when we read in God’s Word about things that are going to come to pass in the future, we are not talking about 10 years ahead of time, five years ahead of time. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds, in some cases thousands of years ahead of time. And we have to understand that God is the only one that knows exactly when all things come to an end.The key to understanding all of Bible prophecy is the person of Jesus Christ.Now you need to understand that. If you are going to understand Bible theology, if you are going to understand Bible prophecy, if you are going to understand the whole flow of Scriptures, then you are going to have to understand that this book is about the revelation of God, specifically about the revelation of his Son Jesus Christ. This book is about Jesus.Jesus himself said that as he was walking on the road to Emmaus one day and he met those two discouraged believers and he said to them....Oh, the world is falling. Look right over there. See? It is coming down. I knew something was going on.Jesus said that. He said that, “Why don’t you read the prophets? Why don’t you read the law because all of the law and all of the prophets are talking about me?”This book is about Jesus.Now listen to this verse, Revelation chapter 19 and verse 10. They key to the book of Revelation, the key to the whole Bible, if you will, concerning the unfolding of Bible prophecy. Verse 10. “At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me [this is John speaking], ‘Do not do it! I am a fellow-servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus.’” Notice that. They hold to the testimony of Jesus.And then here is what it says. “Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Watch that now. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”And what is this book? This book is the testimony of God almighty through inspired writers about the person, the coming, the work and the efficacious work that Jesus Christ did in this world to take our sins away. Everything you read in this book is his story. In fact, all of history is, in truth, his story. And that is what you find here in this passage of Scripture.And then John 16 and verse 12. Jot that reference down if you would, please. This is so important. It says. “I have much more to say to you [Jesus speaking], more than you can now bear.” By the way, that is the way God works with us in our lives. We don’t get it all in one dose. Many of us would like to get all of Christianity in one quick dose, you know, just become everything God wants you to be in one day. No, you are going to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You are not going to get everything. You are not going to know everything in one day.Jesus tells them. He says, “You know, you can’t even bear all of the truth that I would like to give you.”“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”Who is it that is going to convince us? Who is it that is going to teach us? Who is it, after the departure, after the ceasing of the earthly life of Jesus, who is it that is going to make sure that we get the rest of the story?We had the Torah. We had the prophets. We had the Old Testament. We had the history. We had all of those things. But when Jesus came and did his work on Calvary, he then said, “Now, then, the one that is going to tell you the rest of the story is the Holy Spirit and when he comes he is going to tell you what is yet to come.”So you pick up your Bible and you look at it and you start at Matthew chapter one. You read right through the New Testament and you are going to come to prophetic passage after prophetic passage after prophetic passage after prophetic passage.I dare you. I dare you to go through your New Testament and use this symbol as a symbol. Every time you know that it is talking about something yet in the future, you just draw an eye. Just draw a little line there and a little line there and a little circle on that side and put some eyelashes on it because that will look forward...that will let you know that that is a verse.When you get done with it you go back and you count and you find how many times in the New Testament that Jesus or one of the disciples or one of the apostles, somebody who is writing talks about things yet to come. You are going to find out that it is many, many times because there is much prophecy yet to be finished in the future.There are 333 prophecies concerning the coming of Christ. Jerry Vines says, though I didn’t count them. But I was reading Jerry Vines and he said that there are 300. He found that out somewhere because all of us are the same. We read all these books and find things in books and come tell you about them as if we knew them.Folks, I am only telling you what I have studied. I don’t know everything. I am just telling you what I have been studying. Jerry Vine says there’s 333 prophecies concerning the person of Jesus Christ. One hundred and nine of those prophecies were fulfilled, in his first coming. Now let me say that again.Prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus Christ. There are 333 of them. One hundred and nine of those prophecies had to do with his first coming into the world. Thirty-three of those prophecies were fulfilled in one day. That leaves 224 prophecies concerning Jesus left concerning his Second Coming. Two hundred and twenty four prophecies.“Oh, wait a minute here. Now I don’t...I just thought the last thing that was going to happen is going to be the rapture.”Oh, no. There are many, many, many, many, many more prophecies just concerning the person of Christ that are left yet to be done.Question: How accurate were the prophecies about his first coming? What do you think? How accurate were the prophecies about Jesus’ first coming? Were they pretty accurate? Oh, they weren’t just accurate. Let me teach you some Spanish. They were accurate [?]. I mean they were so unbelievably accurate that I mean you could not...you could not find one single discrepancy in all of the life of Jesus Christ. The probability of him fulfilling all of those 109 prophecies on time at the right place is just astronomical. You can’t even think about the possibility that that is.Well, it is isn’t possibility. It is called sovereignty and God made it happen.And here watch this. Think about this. The virgin birth, the Bethlehem chronicles, the flight to Egypt, the return to Nazareth, the carpenter shop training, his area of ministry, his entry into Jerusalem on a young colt of a donkey, the cross, the garments, the crown, the clouds, all of those things fulfilled. I mean, exactly what the Old Testament said was going to happen in various occasions.Now here is another question for you. We know how accurate the prophets were about his first coming. Now, knowing that God is batting a thousand—you know, baseball is right around the corner and I kind of like that sport, too. I want to go over here and watch the cubbies lose again.But do you know God bats 1000? Everything... You know, Moses said that one day. He said that one day when he was getting ready to depart from all those people that he had been leading for all those years. He said, “Not one of his promises that he gave to you has failed, not one promise. Everything he said he was going to do, he did.”And I want to say to you that the one who kept all 109 of the first prophecies is going to keep all 224 of the last prophecies and he is not going to miss a beat. One of those promises is he is coming back for you. He is not going to miss that.Another promise is he said, “Where I am, there you will be also.” He is not going to mess that up.God never misses on his prophecy and he has said these things to us. He is going to do completely, exactly, fully, everything that he said that he was going to do.“Ok, Phil. When is he coming?”I knew you were going to ask that.“When is he coming? How much time do I have?”You know, in the New Testament days let me tell you how they acted. It was a time of great difficulty. If you will remember, if you have ever read 1 Corinthians chapter six, seven, eight there were some cultural things that went on there, but there were also some things that Paul gave some information to those that were there about marriage. He says, “I would that everyone remained as I am so that you may serve the Lord fully because the Lord is at the door, the Lord is at hand.”I mean that is what Paul was saying. This is 2000 years ago. And Paul was saying, “You know what? If you are married, stay married. If you are not married, don’t seek to get married.”He [?] to understand that what is most important is that Jesus is coming and he is coming... He was talking that way 2000 years ago.And somebody might say, “Well, see there? He said he was coming. He hasn’t come yet. I guess he is not coming.”No, all that means is that he thought he was coming then and he didn’t come. How much closer are we to his coming now than when we first believed?Jesus is coming.And so you say, “Well, when is he coming?”I don’t know, but don’t think that the question didn’t cross the mind of the disciples.They asked him.You say, “Is it wrong to ask when he is coming?”I don’t know, as long as it doesn’t side track you.You say, “What do you mean?”Back in the 70s and 80s one of the most popular events in America in the Christian community was to run off to a prophecy conference somewhere and just to, you know, to get big books and syllabuses and they would sold all kinds of books and you would go and you would sit at these conferences and they would all ooh and ah and listen to somebody. They would go on cruises and just cruise off all into the Caribbean and they would just float all around out there in some great prophecy teacher. And I am for it. I’m not saying that they are not right. I am not saying they are not telling the truth. But there’s...that is not really what we are supposed to do. We are not supposed to get caught up in is he coming today, tomorrow, the next day, next week or next year. We are supposed to do what he told the disciples to do.And listen to what he told them to do, Matthew 24 in your Bibles verse one to three. Take your Bibles, open it up. Keep it moving. Those pages flip all direction so just grab that thing and go to Matthew chapter 24.The sign of a growing Christian is a worn out Bible, a person who needs to go buy a new one. So use it. Use it, read it, love it, weep over it, pray over it. Put it in front of you when you have your devotions. Pray the Word of God.Matthew 24:1-3. “Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.” Think about that. “Oooh, Lord, look at that thing. Isn’t that something? Look at that. Look at that world trade center.”Think about that. Think about that whole context there. “Look at what men have built.”"Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately.They didn’t want to stir up a controversy. “‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?’”Well, what did they say? Well, they were just as curious as we are. “When are you coming back, Lord?” They fully expected it to be any time. They believed that his coming was even at the door. He told them lots of things concerning how it will be just before he returns. But he gave them an answer that would not satisfy them and it does not satisfy most humans because we just want to get this figured out. We want to know when, you know.My wife loves to go on a vacation with me and we are one of the few spontaneous families in the world. I gave her 30 minutes to get ready for a vacation and we went. You would not like to be part of the Winfield family. If you do not like spontaneity then you do not want to be part of the Winfield family. I mean, you know, jump in the car and drive to Kansas City just for the fun of it. I mean, just, you know, just spontaneity. If you are one of those people that you like to have your life righted all the way to the end, you know, there’s a lot of us like that.“Oh, I want to live by faith. But, Lord, light up the whole thing so that I can see it from here to there.”You know, I told you this one time. It is kind of like saying, “I want to go downtown to have a Starbucks downtown on Locust Street on...” By the way it is 10th and Locust right down. Anybody wants to know where it is that is where it is. I go there often.But anyway if somebody says, “I want to go down and I want to have a coffee at Starbucks,” and so you pull out of this parking lot and you want to know whether the lights are green all the way. Well, it’s just not going to work like that. You are just going to have get in and go from light to light to light and get on the expressway and dodge the cranes and all the things that are going on and find your way down there.And that’s what...you know, life is not like that, but we would love it to be that way. We would like our life to just be laid out right before every bump in the road, every pot hole, every difficult. We would like to know that there is just going to be smooth sailing, green lights all the way, no difficulty, straight line, nothing to go around, over under. We just would love to have that and like to have it lighted right down to the end. We like the Lord...Here is what we would really like. Phil, right over here, Stovalt, you know what? I am coming back on December 12th, 12:23 AM so get ready.He says, “Well, ok then. Got that figured out. Now between now and then I’ll a lot my time and these are the things I am going to do between now and then.”Well, that is the way we would like it to be. You know what the Lord says to us? “Be ready because at an hour that you think not, like a thief in the night I am coming. You don’t know when I am coming. It could be at any time so be yourself ready.”That is the way the Lord wants us to live.He wants you on the edge of your seat. That is the way we are supposed to live. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t relax and we don’t enjoy life. We are supposed to occupy until he comes, but we are supposed to know that the Lord could come at any time.But, and the answer that Jesus gives them does not satisfy. Matthew 24:36, “No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”Now I believe the Son knows now, but I believe that the time he said that when he was in the world he did not know the day, the hour. He didn’t know about when he was going to come back the next time. He did not know, only the Father.The short reply is that no one knows when Jesus will come back, however all of human history is pointing to the fact that the road ends at the person of Jesus Christ and in his eternal kingdom.Predictions are abundant. There is a fellow by the name of Ed Wizenhand. Did you ever hear of him? Anybody ever read his book? Do you think anybody is buying that book?A radio preacher said, a famous radio preacher said he is coming back in 1994. He is not on the radio anymore.Joseph Smith said he is coming to Salt Lake Utah in his life time. Well, unless he is living a long, long life I don’t believe he is. He didn’t come.How many of you know who Charles Taze Russell is? Why he was involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and very instrumental in getting that all started. He said that Jesus came in 1914, but nobody saw him. He did. He said he came in 1914 but nobody saw him.Well, I have got a problem with that because Revelation chapter one says, “And every shall see him.”Well, the Lord is coming. He will come and the fact that he is coming has been on everyone’s mind. Acts chapter one verse six. Listen to God’s Word. His disciples, even those on the Mount of Olives—can you imagine the thrill? Now back there at the temple when Jesus was talking about the temple of his body, also knowing that that temple would be destroyed, that was one thing. That was pretty amazing for him to say those kinds of things and for the disciples to ask him, “Lord, when is this going to happen? What is the sign of the end? When is the sign of your coming?”They were asking him this. But now then, now then, the resurrection has occurred. Things are different. We are not talking about some quizzical people that just, you know, just kind of curious about what is going to go on. No, no, no. We are talking about some people that are energized beyond what we can even understand. I mean to have an encounter with a man that was dead, that you saw ripped to ribbons by the beatings and stabbed through the hands and the feet, nailed to a cross, lifted above the earth, dropped into a hole, suffer like no human ever suffered, be...to die, have his side poked with a spear, have the blood and water mixed proving that he was dead running out, died, be taken down, embalmed in the way that they embalmed him, put him in the grave and then three days later find out that he is risen and that he is appearing to people.In fact, 1 Corinthians 15 says he had seen over 500 people in one meeting. Well, that’s a lot of witnesses, do you know that, 500 witnesses that stand there and say, “I saw him. He’s alive.”Well, this group that is on top of the mount of Olives are ecstatic. This group that is on the top of the Mount of Ascension, rather, they are up on top of the Mount of Ascension and they are thrilled beyond measure. They are...I mean they are giddy they are so excited.“Ok, Lord. You are going to go back to heaven. Whatever you say. You know what? We wondered about this rising from the dead thing, but do you know what? You have proved us all wrong. If you say you are going away and coming back, great. When are you coming back?”We always want to know, when, when, when, when, when, when is he coming?Acts 1:6. “So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom?”“You talked about that, Lord. Are you going to restore the kingdom now?”“He said to them: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.’”You ought to write yourself a note in the margin, “A note to me from God.”“It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.”But here is what is to you. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Knowing that Jesus is coming is supposed to produce an activity and an attitude in our life. It produces the attitude of expectancy. He may come at any moment. And then it produces the activity of sharing the gospel.You know, just watching that whole thing up there on that screen with that thing in the hand and all that stuff, it just sort of gives me the, you know, the willies, the chills, the goose bumps. How many of you know what I am talking about? I just...oh, he is coming and he could come at any time. It makes you wonder whether that bass boat is really what you need, isn’t it?There is nothing wrong with a bass boat. There is nothing wrong with a three wheeler or whatever. Nothing wrong with anything. Use it to the kingdom of God, to God’s kingdom’s glory. Use whatever. But here is what I am saying to you. To live for those things is really a problem knowing that Jesus is around the corner. He is coming. He is coming very soon.“What are the sign posts, pastor?”Let me give you some of them very quickly tonight. The first sign posts are physical, physical sign posts on the road, on the road toward eternity.Matthew 24:7 says in various places, “There will be famines and earthquakes.” The King James says “pestilence” as well or sickness.Earthquakes. The last 100 years 10 times the seismic activity of the previous hundred years. Did you hear me? Ten times the seismic activity in the last hundred years of what there was the 100 years before that. Growing up as a boy I don’t remember hearing of the massive earthquakes that we have heard of in the last decade, much less in the last 100 years.Pestilence. What is that? Well, it is sicknesses. It is disease. AIDS is a horrible scourge upon our country, upon this world. It is a terrible thing. I have a brother in law in Africa, in Zambia. Seventy, get this now, 70% of the people in that nation will die of AIDS. Horrible thing.AIDS. A homosexual Canadian airline steward was the first one to bring that into the adjacent 48. When he brought that disease that was a result of sexual activity with a primate, maybe not him, maybe someone else...You say, “What? Sexual activity with an ape?”Well, you see, Darwin told us that we descended from what? So why not?Do you see why wrong doctrine and wrong belief is so very, very, very dangerous? Everything is spiritual. Every decisions is a spiritual decisions. There is no such thing as making a decision that doesn’t have spiritual...“I just think I’ll go out and get drunk tonight.”That’s a spiritual decision.“I think I’ll just do whatever I want to with my money. I am going to take God’s tithe and spend it any way I want to.”That is a spiritual decision. And it is going to have spiritual and physical ramifications in your life.AIDS is the product of a spiritual decision.Now you listen to me. AIDS, when AIDS crossed the borders of the United States the estimates were that, well, even if there is sexual activity between an infected person the chances were only one in a million; 10 years later, one in 600. In San Francisco today if there is activity it is one in 25, the chances that that person is going to contract that.Now combine that with the drug usage. Combine that with the tainted blood supply and all these other things and many other avenues that I won’t go into and AIDS is a scourge. And that is horrible.Pestilence. But that is nothing compared to the hot zone diseases of the world.You know, we are cute. We want snakes in our homes. You know, we want to go in and get jaguars out of the jungle, bring them in, put a leash on them, put in the back yard. We want to take lions and tigers out of the jungle and we want to bring them in and we are not understanding that that is another kingdom, that is an animal kingdom that God set up. These aren’t domesticated animals. And you can’t raise a snake like I heard about a snake that somebody had a particular type and that they had, that a little boy grew up with and at 15 years old the snake and the boy, the snake completely strangled the 15 year old boy and killed him right in his home, grew up with him. You know what? You don’t domesticate a snake.Hot zone diseases coming with these animals, coming from around the world. What is one of them? Ebola. What is that? Well, what AIDS can do in 10 years Ebola can do in 10 days as it eats your flesh away from the inside out. Horrible, terrible, hot zones.Physical signs. There will be famine. There will be pestilence. There will be earthquakes. I need not mention the hunger that exists in the world today. I am going to have to come to a close and finish as we keep going next week.Matthew 24:29. “Immediately after the distress of those days "‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”We have made the good old United States of America, our military and armed forces have produced a 100 megaton nuclear bomb.“Ooh, that sounds big, pastor, how big is that?”Well, if you drop an atom bomb every day for the next 13 years... Do you know what an atom bomb did in Nagasaki? Do you know what it did in Hiroshima? Do you know what it did? Eighty thousand people and now today, even today, one in five born in that area are born with birth defects because of the radiation that continues to linger in that area.Now listen to me. You know what a 100 megaton bomb is? It is a bomb that if you dropped an atom bomb every day for 13 years you would finally get up to what a 100 megaton bomb. And our good old United States as well as China and Russia and others all boats of a bomb that would literally obliterate life as we know it.Bad news.How about some international signs? Those are physical signs. Here are some international signs. Matthew 24:7, “For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom.”Right around 1950 the United Nations came into being saying, “We are going to just put an end to all of this. We are going to take control. We are going to eliminate all of these wars in the world.”There have been exactly three and a half times the wars since 1950 that there were before 1950 in the last 500 years. Wars, nations rising against nation, countries that figure in the end times, nations.Listen to this. Russia does figure in the end times. The Bible talks about Gog and Magog and Rosh and the prince of Rosh coming down. Russia will figure. Europe, perhaps, more than any place on the face of the earth will figure in the end times and what happens during the tribulation period. The revived Roman Empire figures in the end times, those 10 nations.You say, “Pastor, where do you get that?”Well, there are10 toes on Daniel’s statue in Daniel chapter two, 10 toes. There are 10 horns on the head of this beast that comes up out of the sea in Revelation chapter 12 and 13. There is always 10. And these 10, these horns, these toes always represent kingdoms in a confederacy that always hovers there in the common market of Europe between eight, nine, 10, 11 and 12.You say, “Well, there are 12 of them over there now.”Yeah, but there was nine five years ago. I mean just...you know, I mean it just goes back and forth. But it is at a certain time. Whether we are talking about those 10 that were in existence in the New Testament or whether we are talking about 10 that are actually going to be in existence when Jesus comes back, there are 10 nations in Europe that are going to comprise the revived Roman Empire and they, they are really going to figure into what is going on in the end times. Jerusalem figures in the end.The city of Jerusalem for over 2000 years did not even exist as a nation. People laughed, mocked.“Yeah, sure, that’s right. The Bible. You can’t trust that Bible. Yeah, prophecy, inspiration, that’s all gone.”But in the 1800s the new theologians, the textual critics were all saying, “Yeah, you can’t trust that Bible. Israel doesn’t even exist as a nation.”Well, God’s batting 1000. Never forget that.May 14, 1948 the nation of Israel was reborn. Zechariah 8:4 says:Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Old men and old women shall again sit In the streets of Jerusalem, Each one with his staff in his hand Because of great age. The streets of the city Shall be full of boys and girls Playing in its streets.’I don’t know if you ever watch the news, but I see that on the news and in their little uniforms coming out of school. The boys and girls are running home and they are all carrying on and giggling and playing in the streets and old men—which was not something that happened in Israel for many years—but God said it was going to happen.There are international signs. There are intellectual signs.Let me hasten to finish. Intellectual signs. Turn in your Bibles to Daniel and we will finish, Daniel chapter 12. Intellectual sign posts along the road toward eternity. Listen to God’s Word.The Bible says in Daniel chapter 12 and verse four it says the following, it says, “But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.” Watch this. “Many will go here and there to increase [what?] knowledge.”I just showed you about a result of increased knowledge. I have given you this illustration before, but I want to give it to you again. If you could accumulate all of the knowledge that mankind had accumulated in books and computers and what have you up until 1900—didn’t even have computers—but up until 1900 let that be represented by a penny on the floor. The accumulated knowledge of man from 1900 to 1950 would have made a stack eight feet high of pennies. The accumulated knowledge of man from 1950 to 1970 would have reached to the moon. The accumulated knowledge of man from 1970 to the present cannot be measured because it would go beyond our universe two or three times and come back to us.We are living in a time of increased knowledge. How many of you as young people were born and raised on a farm? How many of you...? I see Bill Cheney. Bill, would you have ever dreamed that you could talk on a telephone and see the person you are talking to in that phone and that phone have no wires to it? Technology. Would you have dreamed, would you have dreamed you could have been on an airplane? That was quite a feat in the first place, but an airplane, sitting in that airplane talking to somebody on a telephone provided through the airplane, talking to anybody you want to. You are moving through the air and that thing is bouncing off a satellite somewhere.Can you believe that I am going to go to Peru in just a few weeks and within 15 of accuracy I am going to be able to tell exactly where I am on this planet because of a little wrist watch that has a GPS on it, a global positioning system, that I am going to be able to know exactly where I am in this big old universe because there are satellites up there, 12 of them, that hone in on that GPS and tell me where little Philip’s paddies are running today.We live in a day of increased knowledge. I am not the sharpest drawer in the knife, nor the smartest guy on the block. But here is what I know. Sharpest knife in the drawer. I told you I wasn’t sharp.Listen to me. Here is what I know. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg in the area of the explosion of technology and information in this world. And the Bible said the people are going to go here, there like lightning, jostling like streaks of light against each other in streaks. They are going to do that chasing down more knowledge.I am going to stop right here. I have got more to say. Come back next week and I will carry on. But I want you to know this. Jesus is coming.You say, “What comfort have you given us tonight?”Well, nothing. None of this should shock you. It should just let you know that your redemption is closer than when you believed. Jesus is coming and we had better be about the master’s business because the master’s business is beginning to take form and he is going to take over very quickly in this world.Let’s bow our heads.Father, bless us, encourage us, use us, open our mouths to witness, help us not become groupies that want to go and study prophecy, but help us to be aware that you are coming so that we can study to be like you, so that we can witness to a lost and dying world before it is eternally too late. We ask you this in Jesus’ name. Amen.Revelation 13:11Revelation 13:12-14Revelation 13:14-15Revelation 13:16-18Matthew 16:1-4Matthew 16:4Daniel 12:1Ibid.Daniel 12:2Ibid.Daniel 12:3Ibid.Ibid.Isaiah 46:9-10Isaiah 46:10Revelation 19:10Ibid.Ibid.John 16:12John 16:13Matthew 24:1Matthew 24:2-3Matthew 24:3Matthew 24:36Revelation 1:7Acts 1:6Acts 1:7Ibid.Acts 1:8Matthew 24:7Matthew 24:29Matthew 24:7Zechariah 8:4-5Daniel 12:4Ibid.Page PAGE 20 of NUMPAGES 20
In God We Trust
Psalms 33:16–22 All currency in the United States is stamped with the motto, “In God we trust.” Thus whenever they exchange money, American citizens have a small but ever-present reminder that the foundation of life is the Lord, not money.
Psalm 33 offered a similar reminder to the ancient Israelites. The foundation of their society was the Lord, not the size or strength of their defenses (Ps. 33:16–17). This was an important point to keep in mind in that day, because the ability of a nation to defend often determined its continued existence. In fact, the history of the land of Canaan is a history of invading armies from the north and south. Thus it would be natural to rely on the military for protection, rather than God.
The point of Psalm 33 is not to diminish the need for either a strong defense or a stable income, but to urge people to place their ultimate confidence in the Lord (33:18–22). Things like money and the military are merely means to an end. What ultimately matters is whether we fear the Lord and trust in Him to meet our needs.
Verses that Confirm Our Trust in God
Psalms 91:1-2
1He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Psalms 18:1-2
1 I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. 2The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
Psalms 56:3-4
3 When I am afraid,
I will trust in you.
4 In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can mortal man do to me?
Psalms 56:9-11
9 Then my enemies will turn back
when I call for help.
By this I will know that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise—
11 in God I trust; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
Psalms 52:8-9
8But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. 9I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.